Meta post I’ve decided to make. I enjoyed the unixporn subreddit a lot when I used reddit more. I enjoy customizing my linux de as much as the next nerd.

But you definitely shouldn’t use racist slang to refer to the process.

To be clear, I didn’t know the origin of the term ‘ricing’ until fairly recently. I was chattimg with my friend and used it to describe my de setup. They informed me that apparently it’s from car customization, and is a pejorative against generally asian men who customize their car to look like a racecar.

After learning this I was sad to realize just how engrained it is in linux de customization culture. I personally have stopped using the term, and I would ask everyone here stop as well.

  • NormalC [he/him, comrade/them]@hexbear.netEnglish
    287·
    1 year ago

    When repos changed to main from master, I got problems.

    No you just harbor already racist attitudes. There are a non-trivial amount of people who dislike arbitrary, antiquated terminology used in computer science like “master/slave” “male/female” and of course “master branch.” Simply getting out your bullhorn and asking “who’s actually offended by this?” is demeaning to the issue at hand which goes much farther than just a historical analysis of racism.

    • Orcocracy [comrade/them]@hexbear.netEnglish
      232·
      1 year ago

      Yeah, I remember thinking all of these terms were strange and creepy back when I first learnt them as a kid for goodness’ sake. They’ve always been bad and I’m very glad they’re finally going away.

      • Nate Cox@programming.devEnglish
        2·
        1 year ago

        This is indeed the silliest debate.

        I used the term master for years, never really thought about it. I think I assumed it was referring to a master key (from which other keys are copied), rather than anything to do with ownership of people.

        Then some people felt offended by it because they interpreted it differently than I did.

        So… I changed the word I used. Like, it was the easiest thing in the world to do. “Main” is fine too, rolls right off the tongue, and if it happens to make a group of people feel less discriminated against than that’s all the motivating I need.

        I also changed my repos as I updated them. It was like two commands and maybe a couple of lines in a CI config file. Trivial, even for dozens of them.

        Today I wonder what the big deal is. If it really is “just a word”, well… so is main. Both words. If the one we’re using isn’t actually important then why resist changing it?

        Seems to me like active resistance is kind of an indicator that maybe it really was about the word all along.